Wednesday, December 21, 2011

"War Horse" Review

Generally speaking, I’m a big fan of animals. I enjoy a
good dog movie as much as the next guy and I think zoos are just swell. It may
come as a surprise then to learn that I don’t care much for horses. I’ve just
never understood their appeal. As such, horse movies haven’t historically been
a favorite genre of mine. I enjoyed The
Black Stallion as a kid but if I’m being honest, I think I liked that one
because it had a scene or two involving a cobra and I was really into cobras at
the time. But I’ve never been able to muster up much excitement for Seabiscuit, Secretariat, Hidalgo or
any other horse-related movie you might name. I imagined, however, that War Horse would put these feelings to
the test because if any storyteller could make me give a rip about horses, it
would probably be Steven Spielberg. But were my imaginings proven true? Yes and
no.

War Horse tells
the story of World War I through the experiences of a very special horse. We open
with an introduction to Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine) and his beloved horse,
Joey (worst horse name ever). After Albert’s father, Ted (Peter Mullan),
foolishly purchases Joey, Albert trains the horse and teaches him to pull a
plow despite not being the sort of work horse the family so desperately needs.
The two are inseparable until the day comes that Ted is short on the rent and
has to sell Joey to a British cavalry officer (Tom Hiddleston) who swears to
take care of Joey and bring him back when the war is over. But war is an ugly
affair, of course, and soon Joey sets off on a years-long journey that will see
him change hands a half-dozen times and come close to death a hundred more
while bringing him closer to being reunited with Albert than either man or
beast could ever imagine.

What I enjoyed most about War Horse is exactly what I would have expected to be my least
favorite part: the horse. Spielberg does a magnificent job of creating and
honing the film’s tone to emphasize the horse properly without allowing that
narrative to become tiresome. What I mean is, I think it is very easy in an
animal-focused film to focus on said animal so much that it becomes difficult
for the audience to relate. Instead, Spielberg uses the horse to shine a light
on the lives of the people he comes in contact with and in doing so, allows for
more opportunities for the audience to get invested (this works to varying
degrees but more on that in a moment). As Joey moves from place to place, we
are introduced to a litany of characters, most of whom are caught in some sad
state of affairs, and all of whom are impacted in one way or another by the
horse. It is a very intriguing and unique concept and one that Spielberg works
well within.

As War Horse
progresses, it gets stronger and hits its stride when Joey comes into the
possession of a sickly French girl (Celine Buckens) and her grandfather (Niels
Arestrup). Buckens is a real delight and her character plays well to the whimsy
of the film’s lighter moments, providing one last breath of fresh air before War Horse truly delves into the darkness
that is war. But while Joey finds himself in more and more dire situations, the
film itself comes together nicely and it seemed to me that at this point, Spielberg
found a comfortable groove that is missing in the early goings. In the third
act we are treated to a series of scenes that reek of Spielberg in the very
best sense of the word and display the true heart of the film. One sequence in
particular, in which a British soldier and a German soldier meet on the field
between their foxholes to come to Joey’s aid, is one that, in my mind, belongs
on the Spielberg highlight reel. Indeed, there is an awful lot to like about War Horse in the final two acts.

What I did not enjoy about this film was that blasted
first act. Early on, it is unclear whether War
Horse intends to be a family-friendly, holiday movie or a hard-hitting war
drama. In one scene a goose is chasing an unwanted guest through the Narracott’s
yard and in the next we’re hit hard with the sobering reality of life below the
poverty line. Later, Spielberg blunts the brutality of war in order to secure a
PG-13 rating (which I understand) and then follows that up with the
non-explicit but no less depressing execution of two young soldiers. In
addition, I didn’t care for the shot selection in the first act, a shocking
criticism considering I don’t believe I have ever questioned Spielberg’s work
with the camera before. His persistent close-up of the plow as Joey pulls, for
example, comes across as cheap and distracting and left me scratching my head. But
perhaps the film’s biggest issue in the early stages is the performance of
Irvine. I wouldn’t go so far as to say his portrayal is unwatchable but that
terminology wouldn’t be too far off. Irvine had very little cinematic
experience coming into War Horse and
like the film, he gets better as he goes. But if I’m being completely honest,
his work in the first act made me cringe more than once. I thought he was
terrible.

All told, what you have with War Horse is a good film that is being treated as a great film
because of its final act. If the audience in my theater is any indication, this
is a film that has the power to invoke real emotion, enough to make you forget
the lackluster first third. I won’t argue that Spielberg didn’t know how to
blend the family-oriented portions of this film with the harsher realities of
war contained in other parts but I would say that he tried too hard to reach
out to everyone rather than focusing
in on a target audience. A PG family film would have brought a ton of cash and
an R-rated serious look at war through the eyes of the horse would have
undoubtedly garnered serious award consideration. And hey, it’s entirely possible
that he’ll be able to get both by splitting the difference; that combination just
didn’t quite work for me. It did,
however, make me kind-of-sort-of care about a horse and that is somewhat of an
achievement in and of itself.

2 comments:

Saw this last night. We both kind of felt it was a bit jumbled, like it could never make up its mind what kind of movie to be. The horse is what ties the characters together, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it wasn't as strong as we'd have liked it to be.

The best scene, IMHO, was the one with the British and German soldier in no-man's land.